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October 29, 2016

I went to bed early last night thinking I could use some sleep after a hectic week and that it'd be good to be well rested before my final this Monday.

Well, I woke up to a message sent to my page. Nothing unusual.
Only this time it was my face all over again and some imbecile pretending to be a 36-YEARS-OLD NURSE FROM CANADA - WITH MY FACE!!!

My full conversation so far with the hero without cape:

As before, click the picture to enlarge them

And here are the pictures he sent me.

Since we're in different time zones, it'll most likely be some hours before I'll get a reply.

Now THIS is truly the work of a good-for-nothing.

Unlike LAST TIME where they actually took the time to mirror (and maybe cut) my picture, this picture has been stolen directly from THIS LENS REVIEW BLOG POST on my beauty blog.

[UPDATE AS OF NOV. 1st]

Some hours after I created this post, the guy replied me again - this time with another picture of my long lost, 15 years older twins profile and a link as well!
Of course my internet had to die on me over the weekend and since I was also busy studying for my exam yesterday, I couldn't be bothered with all this before today.

Let's take a look at the profile:

First off: SCREW YOU! Like I look 36?! WHO IN THE WORLD DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!?!

But yes. Interesting.

It's actually quite entertaining finding a profile like that. It kind of feels like finding an alternate version of yourself in an alternate universe.

It seems this Lucy ("jasi8") went a whole different way and became a nurse. Ah, yes.

Maybe this is the me that never discovered K-pop?

In high school she chose French instead of Spanish and without having any cool hobbies or strange goals to pursue, she decided to fly all the way to Canada to start a new life. She fell in love with the moose there (they have moose, right?) and decided to become a vegetarian.

She's got 25 cats and still counting but sees herself as a strong, independent woman. The only reason she's on this site is because her friends from the moose loving vegetarian club and her made a bet about who could find and convert most meat lovers within a month. She's probably coming in second.

Okay odd stories aside. Like I said, I got a link to the profile as well:

Unless I decided to join the site (which I have absolutely NO intentions of! I want to associations with them whatsoever. Not that I have anything against OkCupid but I refuse to have my face on a dating site), I didn't have any way to report the profile.
So instead I contact OkCupid and told them as it was: Someone is using a picture of me without my consent and I want them to take it down ASAP.

October 20, 2016

I had just returned from my adventures to buy glue so I could fix my shoes before GEEKcore tomorrow when I came home to see a message sent to my Facebook page.

[Click the pictures to enlarge them]

A stranger sent me a link to a tweet, asking if it was me in the picture.

..and I found this. That's my picture right there, cropped and mirrored.

I was furious with what I saw!

How DARE they use my face like that!?

And also, how dare they say this "Katie" person is a 25-year-old when I can't even get into clubs with this face in my own country without showing ID?

At first I thought maybe someone had stolen my picture and made a fake profile using my face. You know, a catfish or something. I immediately told them to take it down.

But the more people around me looked into it, the more it seemed like it was this "page" itself that had falsely made an account with my picture to make themselves seem more.. legit, I suppose?

I was preparing myself for a large scale attack to expose them and their trickery but soon after writing to them, the Tweet was removed.

As you can obviously see, the page is in my own mother tongue. I'm not even American! How double dare they!

I didn't get a screenshot of this yesterday but I can see today that they have removed two other tweets: one with a picture of a (blonde?) girl with a cross necklace and some text asking whether Christian girls were better to date (or something along those lines). I forgot what the other picture was about. But both were right beside the picture of the girl with the bruises on her face.

From what I understand, this twitter user is trying to frame Julian Assange - and simultaneously trying to appear like a more trustworthy site by acting as if they were a real, popular dating site with users like "Katie".

I haven't read more into it and won't have time to do so this coming week with both the convention coming and my trip to Vienna coming up.

I wish this whole thing would blow up so those people could finally be exposed once and for all.

I'd be happy to help!

At least it seems a couple of people have noticed on this Reddit thread

August 29, 2016

Today has been one of those days where I stayed in my room, played Sims 4 for a couple of hours, and enjoyed some alone time - and I truly enjoyed it because this week has been super hectic!

Monday through Wednesday I was working almost non-stop on my Tinkerbell cosplay and once our package arrived with the materials needed to make the wings, Jasmin and I teamed up at Jasmin's house to get started.

Neither Jasmin nor I had ever made wings before so this was a completely new experience for both of us! We looked at a LOT of different tutorials but the one we chose to follow in the end was this one (pp. 65-67. FYI it's in Danish) made by a Danish cosplayer called Kelevar and posted in the Danish cosplay magazine DKos.

We spent hours and hours and hours working!

Wednesday, the day our package came, I drew a template for the wings while having the movie play in the background so that I could make sure to get every last detail down.

I made them larger than the girl in the tutorial so I really hope they won't be too heavy ;-;

Thursday morning at 9am we met up. This was when the most time consuming part began: bending the metal wire!

This took way longer to do and was also way harder than I'd imagined since the wire had this thing about wanting to keep it's circular shape.

I can't begin to tell which was worse; bending them into little waves (like to the left) or making these spirals.

We spent 7 hours working that day before we had to split so I could go home to take a shower before Maria's birthday party in the evening.

It was a small party just for the three of us and Maria's third cousin. I'm 120% sure she had us meet because of our shared interest in k-pop!

Next day it was back to work again!

We spent 17 (yes, seventeen!) hours bending the remaining wire and soldering it all together into 2 sets of wings.

Jasmin burnt her hair at least twice and I my fingers were burnt twice as well with the soldering iron.

The next day Jasmin was going to be hosting her own birthday party. However, since it took so much longer tan expected, we figured we had to work on the wings as much as we could as Jasmin moved out yesterday.

For now the wings are at my home and it'll be my job to transport them back to Zealand tomorrow. Before that I'll see if I can have my grandma help me iron them so that all we'll have to do it cover the ends in worbla to make them wearable.

Speaking of birthdays we had yet another family birthday to attend the week before last week and the question about whether I had decided to continue studying Korean came up again. This time my dad's cousins' husbands gave me some good advice on what I could do to make the choice easier so I'm going to do that as soon as I can!

Being so inspired fills me with determination energy and I'm really hoping to get started on some of all the things I have in mind soon.

One of them is cosplay!

With the first ever Comic Con Copenhagen coming up in September (24-25ᵗʰ) and GEEKcore on October 21-23ʳᵈ, I'd like to get the creative juices flowing and once and for all get more seriously into cosplay. As of writing this post I have my new homemade mannequin standing on the table beside me and the only reason I'm not working on my Tinkerbell cosplay for now is because I've run out of needles.

With a new computer and access to a good video editing program, I'm strongly considering starting up a beauty channel on YouTube, something I've been wanting to do for a while. I enjoy writing blog posts and will continue with this but it seems that videos cater to a lot more people + the exposure seems much greater in comparison.

Additionally, if I am to make a "new" YouTube channel, I'd like a fresh new look for my blogs as well.

I'd also love a new hobby.

Earlier this summer when I was in Italy with my family I was attending stretching, yoga, and pilates every day and it really made me miss those days when I used to dance once or twice a week with a small group of friends. I'd really like to start dancing again and perhaps do some dance covers of k-pop songs even though I already know that's quite a stretch.

I'd also love to take up singing! The problem is just that I can't. Or well I can but it doesn't sound all too good.

At last, I'd like to find another job.

I like my job now and I enjoy others but at the same time I'd like another kind of job. I might only work 4 hours a week now but I spend a lot of time outside work thinking about what to do next. Working at a cafe appeals to me on a whole other level and I really wish I could find a job like that soon.

With just 19 days left until our 3rd semester begins, a bunch of mixed feelings and thoughts are starting to face me:

First of all I'm pretty sure I have semi-forgotten 50% of all my Korean and it scares the hat off of me!

When I went to Korea in June I allowed myself to relax a little before my trip and enjoy some 2 weeks of vacation since I'd be practicing Korean every day while I was there and booooy did I get to talk to a lot of people! I have so many stories to tell but those are for my Seoul 2016 Summer posts that I really should begin working on as well.. but I omg I have to finish the ones from January as well ( ;〇□〇）#thestressisreal

Once I returned there were so many other things I had to take care of and now I'm sitting here less than 3 weeks before semester start and I haven't spoken or practiced Korean since I returned in June. I feel like I'm just asking to be kicked out. At least Celine 씨 told me she'd forgotten her Korean as well and that we could be losers together. Yay!

The thought of starting up again makes me feel uneasy. One of the reasons being that I didn't feel ready. That feeling is fading as I'm using my app to revise every night before bed though.

Buuuuuut then comes the books!

As I was ruining myself financially from buying books for the semester (Okay I'm exaggerating here. Maria has it way worse but she doesn't have a high rent to pay additionally), I re-read the profiles on our upcoming courses and stumbled upon a section with recommended pre-course reading that listed two entire books. Now back to feeling unprepared.

Celine 씨 hadn't seen that part either before I told her so we agreed to wait and see if those books were really needed and if so, we agreed to share the expenses and share instead of buying two books each, which is probably the best idea especially now that Celine 씨 will be renting a room for 4K somewhere in Copenhagen.

I'm going to miss running like mad to try to catch train with her after class ㅠㅠ

I'm still so very split between whether Korean studies is really for me and it sure doesn't help that our now graduated senior still can't find a job - it makes me worry if it'll be worth those 4 years. But switching studies like that takes a lot of work that I haven't even read into yet and with the semester approaching so fast, I've decided to not think too much about it now as I prepare for the coming semester. So let's skip that for now, aight?

This semester is going to consist of 2 parts just like 1st and 2nd semester consisted of the language part and history.

1st semester was language propedeutics 1 and pre-modern history.

2nd semester we had propedeutics 2 and modern history.

Now this 3rd semester we'll be doing propedeutics 3 and were given a choice between a studies on Korean movies OR politics, which is a whole new course starting this semester.

I chose the politics subject, properly called "Politics, Multi-culturalism and Immigration in Modern South Korea," and I'm honestly really excited to get started!

August 4, 2016

I originally had planned to make this update much sooner but I ended up having no energy for it before now.

So I got a job.
As a +18-year-old finding a job in my city is hard (but it probably is most places, isn't it?) but I managed to get myself one at my sister's best friend's dad's company as a cleaning lady. In the beginning everything was fine. I knew it was going to be tough work but I was ready to do it just so I could earn a little for myself since it's hard to save up having to pay such a high rent every month.

Monday that first week I was sent to an island outside my hometown to clean apartments that are rented out during summer. I was working with an Iraqi girl named Shahad, who had also just started working over there, and a woman (I originally wrote down her name but I don't want her in trouble so let's call her B.). Again, everything was fine in the beginning. Shahad and I would share apartments (she'd do the kitchen and living room and I'd do the toilet, rooms, and hallway). B told us that we had 30 min.to clean each apartment and we were doing fine until some apartments in she told us that those 30 min. were in total and since we were two working at the same time, we only had 15 min. to do it PLUS we'd only be paid for those 15 min. each per apartment, even if it took longer to clean. And it DID sometimes since people left food in the fridges, trash around the apartments, or super dirty kitchens that had to be scrubbed down.
I have never had a job where I'd only be paid for some of the work I did but always believed we would be paid from the time we began to the time we went home. Apparently not.
This horrible way of counting hours resulted in me having spent 4 hours cleaning that day while only being paid for 1 hour and 15 min. = NOT OKAY!

So Shahad and I went to talk to the woman in charge of us and expressed our dissatisfaction. After a long talk, we decided to give it one more chance and see if it'd be better the next day since we would then be working on our own instead of sharing apartments. It didn't get much better Tuesday nor Wednesday as I still spent a lot more time than I was being paid for.
Thursday it was just B and I and it was sort of a busy day. B was so stressed though and I really didn't like how she let out her frustrations on me. Like, she's snap at me, accuse me of not doing my job well enough, or constantly tell me to hurry even though I did my work within those 15 min. So once again I called the woman in charge of us and told her I didn't want to work like that (in a nice way, of course). She knew that working over there was problematic for many and that was why it was hard for them to find people willing to clean over there in the first place. It'd be hard'ish to find someone to replace me so we agreed that I'd take Friday off and then come help Saturday, which was one of the most busy days. Saturday was just as horrible as the other days working over there but I felt like I had to do it since I was "quitting" so suddenly.
The following week I was assigned to our big shopping mall here in my own city. The way of paying me was the same - I'd be paid for 1 hour no matter how much time I spent there - but after a couple of days I managed to do it within that 1 hour'ish so it was that much of a problem. I went there every day until last Saturday since the usual cleaning lady is back from vacation now.
So in the end I got a job but didn't earn more than what will cover the cost of my books for the next semester..

On a more positive note my friend Yuki from Singapore is coming to visit next week!
He's going to be spending 3 weeks in Denmark and the first week he'll be staying with Chris and I in our apartment to lower his expenses a little. We don't have any specific plans yet except for the 13th when we'll be practicing some K-pop dances with a group of Chris' acquaintances. I hope I'll be able to entertain him!

July 24, 2016

Today I was in Northern Denmark for my dad's cousin Connie's 70th birthday.

The party was held at an inn and a really pretty one at that. From the outside it looked nothing special but the room was like a ball room and three waiters standing in line greeted us the moment we stepped inside. The 50 guests were seated around biiiig round tables with white table cloths, colourful flower arrangements, tall candelabras, and a fancy table setting with three plates including a silver platter so shiny that you could see your own reflection in it, two forks, two knives, and three glasses.
There was a musician, a man around his 60's, playing guitar and singing while a mixer accompanied him in the background. He played all those songs that the elder generation liked and made sure we'd toast at least once evert 15-20th minute.
Some of her friends held a speech and others had made a song. Connie's half sister's grandchild even had her friends from the local drum majorettes come and play a couple of songs, bringing both Connie, my grandpa, and my dad to tears.
There was a free bar and a buffet table from where we grabbed our starters, main course, and dessert.
To me that was the perfect setting for a nice 70th birthday party.

Between starters and the main course, Connie stood up and walked around to all the tables, presenting each and every single person, talking about where from she knew them and the things she admired them for. Connie's husband died 5,5 years ago yet people like his best friend and partner back when he started his own company both attended the party and had brought their wives. It was clear that she was a much loved person and if we didn't already know that, her friends made it clear in the speech.
It's only been some 4 years since we got in contact with that branch of the family and a LOT has happened to them during those years. Let me tell you this: Connie is one of the most selfless and humble people I have ever met. She's that kind of old lady who will make way too much food because she wants to make sure that you won't be hungry. And then she'll bring out the dessert. She will wake up in the middle of the night to pick up her grandchildren and drive them home from wherever they are when their parents are too busy, which we will get back to later. Yesterday when the party ended we drove back to Connie's house to stay for the night and although she wanted to change into less warm and formal clothes, it took her half an hour because she kept asking us if we were thirsty or wanted better chairs or if we were hungry etc. etc.

Now this woman. This great woman deserves nothing but the best, right?
But she does get that. She get's a lot **** from her family and I just cannot stand it. Here's a shortened down version of what happened about 4 yeats ago:
Connie's husband (and a partner) started their own packing company and Connie's daughter and the latter's husband took over at some point. However, the daughter's husband has his own company so I guess she was mostly in charge of this one. Connie's brother, Preben, was also working in that company. Connie's daughter then goes and fires her own uncle and hires some other man. She starts doing a lot to her looks like gets braces, starts working out and losing weight, and has a surgery to remove fat and/or skin. She also hires some other man instead of her uncle. Now she and this man go out for dinner sometimes after working late. Connie's starts to suspect that something is up and confronts her daughter - who gets mad and tells her that she's wrong. Connie goes to the daughter's husband but he doesn't believe her and gets mad at her too. He eventually finds out and it comes to a divorce. Both are still mad at Connie and refuse to move out of the house that they share with their three kids. They live like this for a while and at some point they are both bringing their new partners into their home, creating chaos for the kids. 4 years later the daughter has moved out but both parents are mad at each other and are partly blaming Connie.

Back to the story!
Yesterday, on Connie's actual birthday, her very own daughter didn't show up. Neither did the ex-husband although both were invited. The daughter came to the party, let her kids off, and drove back home without as much as just one word to her mom. She didn't even walk inside to see her.
Right, I don't know what exactly Connie has said to them but no matter how I see it, this is the fault of the daughter and ex-husband.
The daughter was married but had an affair and once the truth was out, the two fought in front of their kids, brought home each of their own new partners, and refused to leave the house - like little kids. Their behavior is childish and selfish and it's so very very clear that all three kids have taken so much damage from this. The girl so much that she STARTED CUTTING HERSELF!! SHE WAS 13 WHEN THIS MADNESS BEGAN. And where were the parents in all this? Idk probably out with their new other halves. It disgusts me+
The boys fight and mostly sit inside now while all three of them don't visit Connie as much as they used to because they have heard their parents speak bad about her all the time.

Nonetheless the kids were there for the party yesterday.
Not long before the party ends, the musician asks Connie and her grandkids to go to the middle of the room because he's going to play a song that's called something along the lines of 'Kære lille mormor' (dear little grandma). The youngest of the two boys get up while his cousins instantly goes to Connie and grabs her hand. Now you have the three of them dancing away while everyone's watching - the now 16-year-old girl too.
This is a big moment for Connie but two of her four grandkids are not there with her. My aunt and uncle cut contact with my own grandparents as well so I knew very well how Connie felt at that moment and went over to the girl. I asked why she wasn't dancing. Told her that the divorce had been hard on Connie, that this was her big day and that I thought (*cough* knew *cough*) that it was important moment for Connie and that it would mean a lot to her if she got up and joined them dancing. The girl said: "Yea, but it was kind of her own fault. She could've just not pried in so much."
In the end she got up and joined in on the last 20 seconds of the song. The last boy stayed back.

HOW CAN THIS NOT BE CONNIE'S DAUGHTER'S FAULT?! How can she put those words in the mouth of a simple 16-year-old girl who is so easily manipulated?!
I'm not friends with any of this girl's parents on Facebook but I wish they'd somehow stumble upon my blog some day and read this. I hope they'll finally open their eyes to their family around them and realize how much chaos they have caused. How many people they have hurt.

My feelings of disappointment and disgust are not as strong as yesterday afternoon when I first began writing this post and I don't clearly remember the analogy I cane up with anymore.
But my points were to treasure your family while you have them.
Especially your grandparents. It's limited how many friends they have around and for some, grandchildren truly are the best elements in their lives.
Just because you don't get along with someone, even family members, doesn't mean that your kids can. And don't put the blame on others when you were the problem from the begining. Act like a grown-up.
I haven't always been the nicest to my mom or dad but I believe I've grown more patient and understanding over the years.
It's okay to want to focus on yourself sometimes but remember that you're not the center of the universe. Family is what you can always turn to if everything else fails. So treasure what you have.

July 7, 2016

I'm not usually one to express my feelings very openly but two days ago I received a Facebook message that had me jumping around the living room and confusing my cats. Why?

Becaaaaaaause... (prepare yourself for a longer explanation)

On May 16th, while I was at home and busy studying for my last final, a girl named Kalypso (beautiful name by the way) posted something in one of the J-Popcon pictures groups on Facebook that I am part of.

In the post she basically wrote that they were a group of people starting up a project where they were trying to find people who looked like real life Disney princesses.

So I sent her a message, wanting to hear more about this project.
She wrote back that it was a project that they were working with up until Comic Con Copenhagen (September 24th-25th) and possibly with Disney.dk. Their goal was to become official Disney princesses for the Disney store here in Denmark with permission from the headquarters in California, naturally. A lot of kids and youngsters here in Denmark might never get to meet their heroes or idols since the closest Disney park is in France so their goal was to make that a possibility. Disney.dk loved the idea and now they were looking for more people. Once they had enough girls they'd send the idea to the headquarters.
I have never considered myself looking even the least like a Disney princess but have, since Maria and I went to Disneyland in 2014, been drawn to the thought of working in one of the Disney Parks for a season or so as a princess... so I "applied" that same night after work. I'd never know if I didn't give it a go, right? They had already found girls for some of the princesses so I applied for Tinkerbell, since I'm more petite, and Cinderella because of my more obvious cheek bones that I diligently try to hide in my blog posts.

THEN(!) two days ago Kalypso wrote back to me that they'd decided on me being the one who looked the most like Tinkerbell. However, some of the higher ups (Disney people) could possible give me another character if they thought I fit her better or, at worst, decide that I don't look like any of the characters. But for now I was one of the girls whose information and pictures they'd send back to Disney.

Nothing is sure yet but ASAJHDJASFHAFJK I'M EXCITED JUST FROM GETTING THIS FAR.
Now all there's to do is to wait and cross my fingers that Disney will agree with Kalypso and the others. Wish me luck!

On another note I've had the strongest urge to play Sims the past 2-3 weeks but every time I have tried, be it Sims 2, 3, or 4, my computer lasted just a couple of minutes before overheating and turning itself off.
So after months of looking having Chris look for me since I don't know much about computers anymore, we finally found one for an okay price and which aaaaalmost lived up to my expectations. I wanted a glossy screen but it seems that the world is against me and I could. Not. Find. a single computer with that, which would also be able to handle me editing pictures and videos, and playing some of the newer games.

I bought this one called ASUS ROG GL552VX-DM016T and I'm really hoping that it'll last me for a long time, just like the computer I have now that has served me well for more than 8 years already. My current computer is working fine except for being unable to play games and not liking longer Photoshop sessions so I'll still be using it until the day she has had enough of me.

But I am APPALLED by how about EVERYTHING has changed these 8 years, and not for the better! Office 365 is now subscription based and so does everything else seem to be. Photoshop is also subscription based! C'mon, buying a computer should be enough. Why can't I just buy things and then keep them like in the old days?! Grrrrrrr.

Meanwhile Chris is laughing the night away about how ignorant and old-fashioned I am when it comes to these things. At least this new computer has a disc drive so I can install my Sims 2 games the good ol' way while I yell at kids outside to get off my lawn B))

July 2, 2016

One of the things I always have enjoyed and probably always will enjoy about these camping trips to Italy are the thunderstorms.

After all these years we have learned to tell when bad weather is coming; extreme humidity, gray skies, a more than average amount of specific insects, etc. or we'll know that once we feel the first raindrop it's time to lift our little camping table inside the tent because nature is about to go mad.

...or sometimes, like tonight, we'll be woken up at 03.00 by a sound that I can best describe as if someone dropped a huge shipping container right outside the tent.

July 1, 2016

As I wrote in my last post, this camping style vacation is something I feel like I have grown out of and I've been spending my days here thinking about how to make it more entertaining for myself.

So far I've spent my time reading the book we used for history class from start to the end. It was originally meant for us to read during first and second semester but I was too busy trying to keep up with Korean class and all the other hundreds of pdf pages that our teacher wanted us to read as well. So yea! Some chapters have been incredibly boring (so boring that my dad has witnessed me several times reading between 5-10 pages before falling asleep mid day, which is something I never usually am able to unless I'm sick) but today I finished and I'm happy that I did seeing how much crucial background info it gave me. I feel like reading it in 'one sitting' was a much better alternative for me to memorize it all anyways.

Now you might think of me as a lazy person but the truth is that I, with my lack of wifi and other things needed for my hobbies, am more active than I have been in a long time. Every morning at 10.00 I attend the stretching class, I do aerobics/pilates from 10.30 for half an hour, and finally at 17.30 there's the yoga class.
But like I wrote in my previous post, except for these activities there isn't much for me to do here and I sort of feel like I could be spending my time more wisely. I do have 2 months or so left of my summer break but at the same time I also have a __lot__ of things to take care of before then. Things that I will be blogging about soon and which I could use some time alone to think through.
As I wrote in one of my last two posts as well (I think) I only had a day in Denmark between returning from what feels like a long trip to Korea and going to Italy with my family. I think it'd be good for me to relax a little and have some time alone in quiet.

It is for these reasons paired with the fact that my mom and I feel bad about leaving our cats home for so long that I bought a cheap ticket home on the 4th of July, a week before the others. It's direct and takes 2 hours while I won't have to deal with the 24-hour-long car ride home like my family so everything is great in that aspect.

However, now that my time here is more limited, I've suddenly come to appreciate the days I have left and this place itself even more. For so many years we have gone here but thinking back I never really took that many pictures for memories + the phone I had five years ago when we were last here didn't have the best camera. So that's what I'm doing now! Today I took a walk with my dad around the camping site and shot a bunch of good pictures/memories while my dad could enjoy a swim in the lake. Once again, this place holds a special place in my heart but in this moment I'm not sure if I'd join my family if they were to go back here next summer so it's nice to have some pictures to remember it by.

I don't have any specific plans the next few days except the football matches in the evening. Tomorrow night is Italy vs. Germany and Saturday is Iceland vs. some team I forgot.
We were here that night Italy won the world championship some years back and even though I don't care for football, the experience witnessing the happiness of the Italians back then was amazing. The pool party afterwards wasn't bad either! So tomorrow we're going down to the stage to watch the match on the big screen with all the workers and other guests and Saturday we will be cheering for our Icelandic brethren!

June 28, 2016

As for more recent events I've got my share to write about as well.
I'm currently on holiday with my family in Italy and now that I, for once, have more time on my hands than ever in a looooong time, I thought I'd pull myself together and write a summarizing blog post on what I've been doing and thinking about lately.

As of now I have already been out of school for about a month and will continue to be out about 2 more months. Some of our exams we had during the semester but our last written and oral exams were on May 13th and 20th respectively. In contrast to my classmates who worried more about the written exam where we had to translate a known text, an unknown text, and write an essay without any kind of dictionary, I feared the oral exam the most. For our oral exam we were in teams of 2 (Celine 씨 and I were together). First Celine 씨 went in alone to do a presentation of herself in Korean, thdn she would answer some questions from our teacher, and then I was called in as well. Together we had to have a conversation on 1 of 5 topics in Korean. Then Celine 씨 was asked to leave so I could do my presentation and answer questions. I was ordered outside and some minutes later we were each called in to hear if we passed or not. I think everyone in our class passed - except our classmate Agnes 씨. I'm not sure what happened to her.
Our exams worked in the way that we had 3 written exams in Korean, one oral in Korean, one essay in history, and had to show up to 75% of our classes in both history and conversation/grammar classes. In order to pass the semester we had to take our oral exam and to be able to sit for this exam we had to pass the 3rd written and then at least one of the 1st or 2nd written exams. Agnes 씨 had had some situations at home that sometimes kept her from coming to school or studying and so the night before our 3rd written exam, she stayed up late to catch up. When her alarm went off the next morning she didn't hear it and ended up oversleeping - thus failing that exam as she didn't show up in time. I believe she took a re-exam but I haven't heard from her since. She didn't attend our "party" that same night in Sophie-Amalie 씨 and Tulsheenam 씨's apartment, celebrating the end of the semester and that Martin 씨, Iohan 씨, and Maria 씨 had all been accepted into the Korean universities they applied for exchange to.
It was a fun party where everyone brought food - also Korean themed. Iohan 씨 brought fried chicken and a Korean spicy sauce that Martin 씨 named the sauce of death because of its red colour. The sauce was delicious nonetheless and some of the girls ended up eating it with a lot of the other food including chips and macaroni and cheese!

Now that the semester was over, I planned to return to my hometown as soon as possible to be with my family, cats, and bunny. Before I could do this I had to finish my work with Nikoline and Mike who, luckily for me, had time for extra "classes" so that I only had to stay a week.
Mike was the first of my students that I had my last class with and by that time the weather was so nice that we spent 2,5 hour outside playing badminton, throwing a football, and fighting with the water hose. When I left he gave me a box with some fancy chocolate that he and his parents had picked out for me. I felt that there wasn't more to teach him for now and some days after I got feedback from his parents saying that Mike was now all caught up and even able to help some of his classmates. I was so proud!
My last day with Nikoline we spent at the library finishing off the rest. Afterwards, after class, we went to buy ice cream and sat down to talk. Nikoline had earlier told me that she was considering becomming an exchange student so that day we talked a lot about that. If she didn't end up going, she said that she would probably like some more tutoring and that they would like to have me as her mentor again in that case, which made me really happy.

Once I returned to my hometown I allowed myself to relax and spend some days doing nothing. That only lasted about 2 weeks because during that time, I'd been talking to Philip, who only fueled my urge to go abroad. I was looking for affordable flight tickets for days until one day I found a price, that I probably wouldn't be able to beat considering I would be flying out exactly a week later. I also found one of the cheapest hostels available and then, for the very first time, I flew out to stay in a foreign country completely alone. I'll be writing posts on this later on so I won't talk more about that for now.

On the 22nd on June I returned to Denmark. I spent some hours in my apartment with Chris and returned to my hometown in the evening. The next morning my grandparents and I went to Aarhus for a braces check and once we returned, I got in the car and drove to Italy with my family and siblings' two friends.

As of writing this post I'm lying on the couch in our caravan at Piani di Clodia, the camping site that my family always went to when my siblings and I were younger. I believe this is the 9th or 10th time we are here, the last time being back in 2011. The camping site is nice as always and they have upgraded a couple of things here and there.
It's nice being back and I truly feel like I know the place but at the same time I find myself restless. I'm no longer as interested in swimming, eating ice cream, and getting a tan as I used to be. I think I have just grown out of this vacation style. Instead of relaxing, I want to spend my time exploring. Hopefully I will come up with something to do soon.

I wanted to make an update on everything but seeing as I never did a round-up on my last post, I decided to write one such post first and afterwards make a new - actual update - one.

Jasmin has been away around 4 months now and she'll come home again either next month or the month after that. Maria and I talked about going there but Maria's exams kept her from doing so. I visited her this month though but more about that in the next post!

The test results from my grandma's last scan came back negative and since then she has been 100% cancer free so that has been a great relief for all of us! These days she's doing fine.

J-popcon came and went but wasn't as great an experience as I had been hoping for. I usually see myself as a tolerant person but these maids' and butlers' attitudes towards preparing for the con was as far from satisfactory as I could ever think of and I was just super disappointed.
First of all almost no one came to help sewing the outfits that we would be wearing so those of us who showed including Andreas, Emil, and Isa, who were our teamleaders and/or experienced with the maid café ending up doing all the work. I tried to go but couldn't help every weekend because of school work but they gathered every weekend - every hour of it! At first we wanted to sew our own Café Sweet Vanilla uniforms but the people in charge of the con changed their minds and said that we had to make normal black ones - that was a bummer too. We ended up with enough dresses but not aprons for the maids and had to share those during the con. That was fine seeing as we didn't all have shifts at once but Andreas, Emil, and Isa told me that some of the maids had complained about this last year. After such a lack of interest in helping us sew the uniforms, I was ready to go at the other maids if they even thought about complaining but luckily no one did.. at last from what I know of.
Also when it came to baking the cakes that we would be selling there was NO HELP AT ALL FROM THE MAIDS OR BUTLERS (except for like 2-3 of them). I came to help and told our leaders that even if I'd have to stay up all night like I'd done for the last J-Popcon and GEEKcore, I'd do it. But I hadn't even finished my own cosplay at that time and had to go home for a couple of hours to prepare for the con. When I returned I brought Chris and his friend with me to help. We finished late, like 3am, and had a third of the amount of cookies we'd planned to sell.
At last there is Café Sweet Vanilla - an idea I had supported from the beginning and looked forward to but which, disappointingly, will never be more than that, an idea. The people in charge of applying for fonds never did, the PR people did nothing, and some of them we couldn't get in contact with at all.
Now that we didn't get to attend as Café Sweet Vanilla, "outsiders" could become maids as well. As part of it though, I was prioritized but one of the conditions for this was that I got a hygiene certificate. It wasn't a requirement for the outsiders though. This resulted in all of ud with hygiene certificate (and maid experience) being forced to take kitchen shifts while all the outsiders got the serving shifts - shifts where they had to deal with costumers and which everyone wanted. Tl;dr everything was unfair and I was more salty than a Pringles chip.
This year's maid café brought many challenges but luckily I am friends with Andreas, Emil, and Isa so after (and during the con) we talked a lot about what went wrong. At least now we know what not to do next time.
Sadly our members' lack of interest caused so much stress to our leaders that Isa decided that she would have nothing to the with the maid café at the next con.

The con wasn't aaaas bad though. But I ended up with the worst shifts ever. I had the opening shifts, closing shifts and then the opening shift the next morning, 4 hour shifts in the kitchen, and had to take extra shifts because some of our maids got sick and none of the other maids wanted to help.
I got little sleep and was sort of grumpy as a result - mostly due to the maids though. Also, because of the time of my shifts, I only had time to cosplay one of the days for a couple of hours.
Whenever I was in the café though, Andreas, Emil, and Isa were good at taking care of me and they let me do a couple of things that the others weren't allowed to do. Let's not talk too much about that ^^;
However, some of the things I CAN tell was what happened Saturday. I randomly came to the café and the moment Andreas and Emil saw me, their faces lit up with happiness. Some of the higher ups had requested that we bring cake to one of the cosplay judges as it was her birthday that day and thus they needed a 'petite and pretty' maid to do so. They thought I fit that description well and since all the other maids were busy with their shifts anyways, I really couldn't have come at a better time. We bought flags, decorated the cake, and then went inside the locked room, in which the judges were doing some pre-judging on the craftmandhip contest, and sang her a birthday song. Right as we returned to the café I was hijacked for another job. This team of guys were doing a documentary styled sketch on J-Popcom amd had come to the maid café to do a scene where one of them got to experience being a butler and being training to be so by a maid (me).
Chris was at the con too with some osu! friends and his best friend Daniel. Chris wanted to make a Steve Irwin inspired funny documentary on J-Popcon and had filmed a lot of great things but to everyone's disappointment his SD card with the recordings and one of the lenses to his camera was stolen.
The Japan student, Nynne, who wrote a paper about cosplay in Denmark joined J-Popcon amd once in a blie moon when I had time, we met up and watched cosplay shows. She also came to the maid café and even cosplayed herself. She finished her paper and sent me the file but I have yet to read it since she sent it around the time I was having exams. I think it went well though!

We held the big international Korean studies event at our school and overall it went well. Although we informed the canteen that we would have a lot of people visiting, they forgot about it and were taken by surprise when they suddenly had to feed 65 additional professors from all over the west. The foreign teachers were impressed by how helpful we were and our own teachers were as thankful as they could be.

So this was a round-up on the things that happened some time ago. The next post will be on more recent events and will be up shortly~

March 5, 2016

It's already been a month (and 2 days!) since I started school again after a 1 ½ month long Christmas break.

For those of you who don't follow my Facebook or beauty blog, I actually went back to Seoul (S.Korea) in January with my classmate Celine 씨 and we had the most amazing trip. I still haven't written the posts from this trip but if you're interested in me and my friends' previous adventures, you can read the first one HERE. There will be links at the bottom, allowing you to advance to the next posts.

In early February I went back to Esbjerg to Jasmin's farewell party before she moved to Seoul for half a year starting February 15th.

These are our last pictures together before she left~

That same weekend we also had dinner with my grandparents to celebrate the end of my grandma's radio- and chemotheraphy treatments. We don't know if the cancer is gone yet, though, before we get the last scan results.

I slept at Maria's apartment that night because the next day we were going to have birthday brunch at Monika's place with 'The ladies' and our friend Louise G.

As always Monika and her boyfriend, Christian, had prepared a heavenly table for the occasion.

And Monika had baked vanilla-chocolate muffins as well!

As for recently my free time has been occupied as well. I lost my first student because the distance between us now was too far (which is totally understandable) but I got two new students - Nikoline and Mike and I'm still as happy as ever with my job.

J-Popcon, one of the two biggest cons here in Denmark, is coming up in just 15 days from now and since I'm going to be working in the maid cafe there, I have spent some of my time getting a hygiene certificate as well as helping sewing the dresses that we will be wearing.

Especially this week has been busy for me.

Monday and Tuesday I spent all my time outside school studying for my exam Wednesday. It was so much easier than I had feared and this time I was sure that I had passed - which I did, yay!

After school Wednesday we were invited to the Korean embassy here in Denmark to see their new Jutlandia exhibition (Jutlandia was a Danish hospital ship that helped soldiers and civilians during the Korean War).
Afterwards we were driven to to the ambassador's house (in embassy cars!) for Korean food, which his wife and chefs had made, and a funny little presentation on social differences between Korea and Denmark by the ambassador himself. It was a pleasant experience and I really liked how down to earth they all were. The ambassador was laughing with and talking to some of us students and his wife came over to me and told me how the fried chicken was spicy. Our teachers told us from the beginning that the embassy does a lot for us and is generally really fond of us but yesterday we truly got to experience that.
We were placed around 4 big round tables. Here's Agnes 씨, Liz (the British girl, who joined our history class), Mathilde 씨, and half a Celine 씨.
On the other side of me were Melanie 씨, Johanne 씨, Sofie-Amalie 씨, and a quater Tulsheenam 씨.
Ah, and my food!
We had tteokbokki (떡볶이), 'spicy' (not at all) fried chicken marinated in honey, a noddle dish that I forgot the name of, kimbab (김밥), and chips... for some reason.

The ambassador told us that the wall here was actually made by a famous Danish architect and that they found it by accident while renovating this room. They wondered if it should be part of the Danish cultural heritage but it couldn't because it was legally on Korean ground. Anyways, the embassy liked the wall and convinced the people back in Korea to let them keep it.

After eating we spent some time chatting and writing in the guest book before taking a big group picture outside in the rain. We also went to the toilet so that Celine 씨 could say that 'she had peed on the ambassador's toilet'.

Thursday I went to the dentist up in Northern Denmark, which allowed me to have a little breather in the midst of all these busy days. After my appointment I had an interview with a Japan Studies student from Aarhus University, who is doing research on cosplay. She's also going to follow me around during one of my shifts in the maid café. After that I went straight home and came back a round dinner time; thus, completely missing today's classes, extra classes, and the 24-hour sit-in that we have atranged at our school to protest against many teachers being fired as well as the closing down of some of our sister studies.

Yesterday I had classes in the morning, I attended a meeting for us who want to volunteer at a big upcoming event that will be held at our university for Korean Studies teachers from all over the world, and in the evening we had a guest speaker coming. Last time we had a guest speaker coming, my teachers took pictures of us and gathered signatures to show to the higher ups that we are actively working for our studies in case they start thinking about shutting us down as well. I didn't go to this one, though, but instead went to help the others sew our maid costumes for J-pop.

I had hoped that I could start working on my essay but I am still waiting for Celine 씨 to tell me where I can find the texts I need. Instead I've spent the time up until now cleaning up the apartment a little before my parents and grandparents come visit tomorrow.